From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from lists.gentoo.org (pigeon.gentoo.org [208.92.234.80]) by finch.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 78BBB13838B for ; Tue, 14 Oct 2014 22:37:17 +0000 (UTC) Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 71C35E08EC; Tue, 14 Oct 2014 22:37:09 +0000 (UTC) Received: from smtp.gentoo.org (smtp.gentoo.org [140.211.166.183]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher AECDH-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 2E1ABE07C2 for ; Tue, 14 Oct 2014 22:37:08 +0000 (UTC) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by smtp.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 59F183403CF for ; Tue, 14 Oct 2014 22:37:07 +0000 (UTC) X-Virus-Scanned: by amavisd-new using ClamAV at gentoo.org X-Spam-Flag: NO X-Spam-Score: -2.393 X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-2.393 tagged_above=-999 required=5.5 tests=[AWL=-0.683, BAYES_00=-1.9, DKIM_ADSP_CUSTOM_MED=0.001, FREEMAIL_FROM=0.001, NML_ADSP_CUSTOM_MED=0.9, RCVD_IN_DNSWL_LOW=-0.7, SPF_HELO_PASS=-0.001, SPF_PASS=-0.001, T_RP_MATCHES_RCVD=-0.01] autolearn=no Received: from smtp.gentoo.org ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (smtp.gentoo.org [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id MT0CxDEPdz04 for ; Tue, 14 Oct 2014 22:37:01 +0000 (UTC) Received: from plane.gmane.org (plane.gmane.org [80.91.229.3]) (using TLSv1 with cipher AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by smtp.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 9A4F03403B8 for ; Tue, 14 Oct 2014 22:37:01 +0000 (UTC) Received: from list by plane.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1XeAi8-0001TV-20 for gentoo-user@gentoo.org; Wed, 15 Oct 2014 00:36:56 +0200 Received: from dsl.comtrol.com ([64.122.56.22]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Wed, 15 Oct 2014 00:36:56 +0200 Received: from grant.b.edwards by dsl.comtrol.com with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Wed, 15 Oct 2014 00:36:56 +0200 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org From: Grant Edwards Subject: [gentoo-user] [OT] Six non-Gentoo installs Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2014 22:36:44 +0000 (UTC) Message-ID: X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: dsl.comtrol.com User-Agent: slrn/1.0.1 (Linux) Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org X-Archives-Salt: c7c7b925-ad67-43a3-ac71-74d8da94e3fe X-Archives-Hash: 505cd12c3f12b2d727976cb4b049470a In order to do some software testing (having mostly to do with different init systems), I installed 6 distros yesterday and this morning (I already had both 32 and 64 bit Gentoo/Openrc systems installed). These were all on a single 1TB drive with a bunch of 100GB partitions that contain a Windows system and eight Linux systems. [There's a "master" installation of Grub legacy that chainloads any one of the 9 OS partitions.] My 6 latest installs were: Xubuntu 12.04 Xubuntu 13.10 Xubuntu 14.04 CentOS 5.11 CentOS 6.5 CentOS 7.0 CentOS 5.11 was the only downloaded ISO that wouldn't boot directly from a USB flash drive and required that a CD be burned. The first five were all quick and uneventful and took a total of maybe 3-4 hours (including downloading the ISO images). At each step of the installs it was obvious what to do. They all allowed me to use the existing partitioning table and install both OS and bootloader into an existing partition. They all recognized both Ethernet adapters, and all booted fine when "chainloaded" by my master copy of Grub legacy. CentOS 7.0, however, was a mess. It took three attempts and almost an entire day of work. My first attempt was to use the "minimal" ISO image so that I would have the option of burning a CD if needed (I can't burn DVDs at the moment). That was a mistake. It was too minimal, and I couldn't get the network working to the point where I could configure repositories and install other stuff. Since the CentOS 7 ISO images all boot from USB flash drive anyway, staying under the 700MB CD size limit was moot anyway. Next I tried the net install ISO. I'm guessing I could have burned the DVD image to USB drive, but all I want is a minimal desktop system, so I figured why wait for a download of 3.5GB of stuff I don't care about. It still didn't recognize the NVidia Ethernet controller on my 5-year-old motherboard. After some cable swapping and futzing around, I got the netinstall going using the Realtek NIC. Maybe I just got unlucky and picked a slow mirror site, but once I got the install going, it ran for over 3 hours when installing a vanilla Gnome desktop system. Compare that with a 15 minute download time for a 700MB Xubuntu CD and then a 15 minute install. CentOS 7 refused to install the bootloader in a partition: your only choices are MBR or nothing. When I manually installed grub legacy it failed because I had stupidly allowed CentOS to use ext4, and the build of Grub I had laying around didn't grok ext4. So I re-do the whole net install again using ext3 instead. Now, after manually installing Grub legacy in the CentOS 7 partition, it boots up. The next problem is that the Gnome Shell is burning 100% of the CPU time, and a terminal window can't even keep up with my typing. Forget that: I can do what I want via ssh, so just disable X11. CentOS still doesn't recognize the NVidia motherboard Ethernet controller. After Google finds me a pages full of links to other people complaining about the exact same thing, I find out RedHat decided that the NVidia forcedeth driver wasn't widely used enough to deserve inclusion on an ISO image that was already 360+ MB. Thanks for that, RedHat. So it takes another 45 minutes of faffing around finding a third party src.rpm file for the forcedeth module and installing it. [It was either that or build a kernel and initrd.] After about 7 hours I got a usable CentOS 7 system running (as long as I don't try to use the Gnome desktop). I'm more convinced than ever that Gentoo is the way to go for my "real" systems... -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwards Yow! I feel partially at hydrogenated! gmail.com